Beat the Credit Crunch - Move Online

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With all this financial doom and gloom in the media it's perfectly understandable that many businesses are looking to cut back on spending and play it safe until the economy is more stable.

Starting a new website or investing money in website marketing is probably something that is generally viewed as an expense to be avoided in the current climate but a move towards web based business could actually save you money.

We all know that paper publications like corporate brochures are in decline and electronic media are on the increase. Now could be the right time to make the leap.

If you produce a brochure it's probably costing you thousands. You've then got all the distribution costs - covering letters, envelopes, postage. With a website you've got an initial cost (almost certainly lower than brochure print costs), some annual maintenance costs (hosting, backups) and then internet marketing costs (promoting your website to get your business found). The big cost difference online is that when you come to the next cycle you don't have this initial outlay again as you would with a brochure. There's a huge saving to be made.

Moving your marketing publications from offline to online won't just save you thousands, it has other benefits. With a traditional brochure the only way of measuring its effectiveness is seeing which of its recipients go on to enquire and then which buy. In reality most companies don't even track this and don't really know whether or not their brochure works but carry on with it blindly more out of habit than anything. With a website and online marketing tools everything is tracked, logged and measurable. Consider the advantages of knowing all this:

  • You will know how many people visit your website. With a brochure how many are read and how many go straight in the bin? You've no idea.
  • You will know which products people are looking at. Again, with a brochure you're in the dark.
  • You will know how people found your site - from search engines, from other sites or by typing in your web address (from offline promotion).
  • With online advertising you will know exactly how many people have viewed your ad and how many have clicked it. Compare this with an ad in a newspaper or magazine - there's no easy way of knowing how effective it is.
Moving your marketing from offline to online will not only save you money but will provide you with exact data which can be used to inform your marketing decisions. This means better marketing and less money wasted on ineffective marketing.